Crossing Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  “I suppose it won’t help any if I apologize,” Shaw said, having it all worked out and ready to put into action.

  Willis let out a dark chuckle. “Hear that, boys? He wants to apologize.”

  Cooder tried to speak. He said in a low, cautious tone, “Willis, hold up. I know who this is.” He spoke faster. “This man’s from Somos Santos, Texas. He’s known as Fast Larry—”

  “Shut up, Fred,” Willis snapped, cutting him off without glancing toward him.

  Shaw didn’t take his stare away from Willis.

  “I say it’s too damned late for any apologies, stranger,” Willis said. A nerve twitched in his jaw; his fingertips twitched with it.

  Shaw saw it coming; he didn’t wait for it. “I believe you’re right,” he said calmly. With a blaze of fire, the barber shawl flew up from Shaw’s lap. One blaze, a second, then a third.

  The terrified barber dove for cover as screaming bullets took over his small, tidy shop. Willis caught the first shot in his chest just as he made a grab for his revolver. His boots left the floor as the impact hurled him backward through the large shop window in a spray of blood and shattered glass. He landed backward against the iron hitch rail with a heavy twanging sound, then pitched forward onto his face. His forehead cracked hard on the edge of the plank boardwalk, raising a puff of dust. But he didn’t feel it. Behind him the spooked horses reared against their hitched reins.

  Before Willis had even begun his backward flight, Maddox took the second shot straight through his broad forehead. His hat flipped up in front like some sort of parlor trick as the bullet blew out the back of his skull. His eyes crossed in a sharp angle as he slammed the wall and spun along it three times, spraying blood and matter on his way until he seemed to spin down to the floor.

  Shaw’s third shot caught Fred Cooder dead center and rolled him along a shelf, knocking out barbering tools, combs and bottles of lilac water and witch hazel. His gun flew from his hand, hit the floor and went off. The stray bullet hit a clock on the wall and sent it exploding into pieces.

  The Texan landed with a grunt, followed by a long moan. From a rear corner, the barber’s striped cat had jumped straight up five feet into the air from a deep sleep at the first sound of gunfire. The animal hit the floor in time to race straight across Cooder’s bloody back and out the shattered front window, leaving a line of a single red paw print behind. It stopped across the dirt street and sat and licked blood from its raised front paw.

  Still seated in the chair, Shaw patted out a flame on the shawl in his lap. “Are you all right, barber?” he asked.

  “I—I—No, for God’s sake. No! I’m not all right, sir!” He stood up, clearly shaken and felt all over himself for any wounds, even though the shots from Shaw and the one misfire from the dead gunman had been the only four shots fired.

  “Then I suppose you won’t be finishing my shave and haircut?” Shaw asked, shoving his Colt back down into its holster. Outside onlookers came forward with careful trepidation, staring all around at the bodies as the speckled barb and the paint horse settled back down at the iron hitch rail.

  “Look at my shop,” the barber said, spreading his hands in despair.

  Shaw stood and walked to the peg where his top hat hung. “I’ll just come back another time,” he said courteously.

  The barber stared at him in awe. “What did this one call you?” He pointed a shaking finger down at Fred Cooder’s bloody back. “I—I heard him. He said you’re known as—”

  Shaw stopped him with a hard stare. Changing the subject altogether, he said, “Where’s the best place to stay in Banton?”

  “You-you’re going to be staying here a while?” The barber didn’t seem to believe his own ears. “Mr. Lawrence, when Bowden Hewes gets wind of what you did to his men, he’ll be coming for you with all the gunmen he can round up! You can’t stay here! It’d be suicide!”

  The barber didn’t know the half of it, Shaw thought, thinking about the three dead gunmen he’d sent riding in to Hewes’ place earlier that day. He looked off along the street toward a weathered clapboard hotel a block away. The building afforded a good view of the main street running in both directions.

  That would do when the time came, he told himself. For now, he had brought Raul’s body here for a proper burial and sent the dead gunmen to Hewes as a message. It was time to see what Hewes was up to in his stronghold on the other side of Fire River.

  When the shooting had begun, Booth Anson and Wilbur Wallick had been walking toward the barbershop. Having watched Shaw walk inside moments earlier, the two had then seen the three gunmen enter the barbershop only to see one of them come flying through the shattered glass. “Jesus!” Anson had said, hearing the other rapid gunshots and watching the cat come racing out across the street. “Keep walking, Wilbur,” he said in tight voice.

  Turning quickly on his heel and heading back in the opposite direction, Anson ducked his head, fearing he’d be seen. Beside him Wallick said, “Don’t we want to go have ourselves a look-see?”

  “Just keep walking, Wilbur,” Anson said, his head even lower. Onlookers ran along the boardwalk toward the barbershop, then slowed almost to a halt as they neared the body lying in the street by the hitch rail. “We’ve got to make sure we do this thing right.”

  At the barbershop, Shaw stepped outside in time to look along the street and catch a glimpse of the two before they ducked back into the saloon. Recognizing them from the trail, he nodded to himself and walked toward the hotel. Banton could get awfully hot for him in a hurry, he told himself. But then he let out a breath and thought about it.

  Hell, what did he care . . . ? He wanted to find out what he could about Hewes and his men and the gold coins before he went off searching for Dawson and Caldwell. Maybe it would make up some for him getting drunk and disappearing for the past month. He hoped so, he thought, walking to the hitch rail. He gathered both horses and walked them toward a sign that had a red painted arrow on it pointing toward the town livery barn.

  He gazed off to the southwest, past the distant hills and past the border. Somewhere, Dawson and Caldwell were out there, tracking down Jake Goshen’s gang. It was time the three of them got back together and got down to business, he told himself. But first he had a trip to make, back out across the sand hills to Hewes’ stronghold. He had a feeling something there would tell him more about the gold coins.

  PART 3

  Chapter 16

  Crayton Dawson stared down at the gunman Jefferson Sadler lying dead at his feet, then lifted his gaze along the deserted street of the ghost town at another outlaw’s body lying sprawled dead amid sand and sage brush. Past the corpse he saw his partner, Jedson Caldwell shoving a wounded man along in front of him.

  “This one is Kermit Bedlow,” Caldwell called out. “He says he wants to talk to us. Right, Bedlow?” He gave the bearded man a nudge with his rifle barrel.

  “It’s not Bedlow, gahl-damn it, Undertaker! It’s Beadlow,” the outlaw corrected him, clenching his bleeding forearm as he stumbled along the street. “You ought to know more about a man ’fore you stick a bullet in him.”

  “What did you just call me?” Caldwell asked, stopping the outlaw a foot away from Dawson and giving the wounded man a hard glare.

  The man looked worried. “I called you Undertaker; ain’t that what everybody calls you?” He turned his scared eyes from Caldwell to Dawson. “Hell, I meant no harm by it. I’m in no position to be giving you any guff.”

  “That’s all right,” Caldwell reassured him. He looked at Dawson and asked with a bemused expression, “Have you heard anything about this?”

  “I heard it mentioned a couple of times,” Dawson said, reloading his still-smoking Colt as he spoke. “I expect it must’ve taken hold. Do you object?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Caldwell said. “It seems strange though. I went to mortuary school, took my training and got all my paperwork, but nobody out here ever called me much of anything. I take on a badge and
shoot it out with some outlaws and now I’m the Undertaker.”

  “Hard to figure,” Dawson said, closing the gate on the big Colt and dropping it into its holster.

  “You mean you really are an undertaker?” Beadlow asked, giving Caldwell a strange look, still gripping his wounded arm.

  “I studied to be one,” Caldwell said.

  “But you’re not now,” Beadlow said with relief in his voice. “That’s good. I’m thinking a man would be taking a heap of bad luck on himself getting shot by an undertaker. I figured it was just a nickname, you know, from all the gunplay you’ve been in around here.”

  “Enough said on the matter,” Caldwell replied. He took off his derby hat, brushed sand dust from its brim and put it back on. “Tell Marshal Dawson here about Jake Goshen’s whereabouts.” He pulled off his finger-less black gloves and stuck them down into his vest pocket.

  “What about my arm?” Beadlow asked. He was clearly testing the lawmen, seeing what he could manage to get for himself.

  “What about it?” Caldwell asked. He’d already planned to sit the outlaw down and tend to his wound. But not right now, not now that Beadlow had tried using it as an item of barter.

  “What about it?” Beadlow looked incensed by Caldwell’s lack of concern. “Hell, I’m bleeding something awful here! I need patching up.”

  “You’ll get it,” Dawson cut in. “First we’re going to talk about Jake Goshen and the rest of his gang. We know you’re not one of his close circle, so don’t waste our time lying. Just tell us what you know.”

  Beadlow tightened up. “I’m not telling you a gahd damn thing until we get settled on what’s going to happen to me if I cooperate with yas.”

  “Fair enough,” said Dawson. “You’re going to jail if you cooperate with us. You’re wanted in Arizona Territory for bank robbery, train robbery, horse stealing and assault on a peace officer.”

  “But we wasn’t even in the US of A when you fellows started chasing the four of us. You had no more authority there than a wild goose.”

  “We won’t tell if you won’t,” Caldwell put in.

  “That’s real funny, Undertaker,” said Beadlow, getting surly all of a sudden. “But since you two have got nothing to offer me, I ain’t telling neither of yas a gahl damned thing.” He jutted his chin toward Dawson. “How’s that, Marshal Dawson?”

  “That’s fine,” Dawson said calmly. Then to Caldwell he said in a firm tone, “Shoot him, Deputy.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Caldwell. He raised his big Colt from his holster, cocked it and leveled it at arm’s length, the tip of the barrel only an inch from Beadlow’s sweaty forehead.

  “Whoa! Wait! Hold on, Deputy!” said Beadlow. He turned loose of his wounded arm and held his bloody hand up.

  “Some last words you want to say, Beadlow?” Dawson asked rigidly.

  “Last words? Hell no, but I got something to say sure enough,” said the frightened outlaw. “I never seen anything that can’t be bargained on a little. What kind of lawmen are you? You went meddling down there where you don’t belong. . . . Now you’re ready to kill a man only because he’s trying to build a softer spot for himself?”

  “Is that all, Beadlow?” Dawson asked. He gave Caldwell a nod of approval.

  “No, wait, that’s not all,” Beadlow said hurriedly, seeing the resolved look on Caldwell’s face behind the long gun barrel. “What do you want to know? I’m giving it all up.” He looked back and forth between the two and saw them ease down. “I can’t say it’s fair though,” he growled under his breath.

  Dawson ignored his comment; Caldwell lowered his Colt, uncocked it, but held it ready, letting Beadlow know that shooting him was an option still hovering close at hand. Reaching into his trouser pocket, Dawson pulled out one of the German gold coins and showed it to the outlaw. “One of you four spent this in El Zorro Rojo Cantina the other night.”

  “Stanley, you checkered-shirt-wearing son of a bitch,” said Beadlow, cutting a sharp glance off toward a trail of dust rising in the distance. “He wasn’t supposed to be spending any more of that German gold, and he knew it. Now he’s the only one to get away. Here I am shot, and Sadler and Holliway both dead.”

  “He’s not getting far,” Caldwell said. “But right now we want to know everything you can tell us about the gold and about Jake Goshen.”

  “We’d been seeing the stolen gold everywhere the past few months; then it started drying up,” Dawson said. “What happened? There was too much for it to all have been spent that fast on whores and whiskey.”

  Beadlow seemed to consider it for a moment; then he sighed in submission and said, “All right. What you saw was just some of the men’s cut of it—some hold-over you might say, to keep everybody drunk and satisfied for a while. The biggest part of it, Jake and his partners held on to, until they figured out what to do with it.” He gave a tight dirt-streaked grin. “I don’t think any of them expected to come into that much money all at once.”

  “His partners?” Dawson asked. “Who are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know them myself, but I heard talk,” said Beadlow. “Jake ain’t running his gang all by himself. He’s got partners, men who know how to cover this much money without it looking like what it is. I heard loose talk that one of them might be Cheyenne Smith. But I wouldn’t swear to it.”

  “Cheyenne Smith is a gambler and a dandy,” said Caldwell. “He doesn’t consort with outlaws. . . . Doesn’t have to, from what I’ve heard.”

  Beadlow paused in consideration, staring at them. Then he said, “Do you two know how big a bunch this is you’ve been trying to lock horns with?”

  “We’ve got an idea,” said Caldwell. “We’ve killed five of them in the past three months . . . put seven more behind bars.”

  “See?” Beadlow pointed out. “That’s why they call you Undertaker. But that’s not even a start. With this much gold involved, Jake has every outlaw from here to Missouri coming to ride with him. He’s bigger than the James-Younger Gang.”

  “Next question,” said Dawson. “Where will we find Jake Goshen, Dean Vincent—the big guns of the gang?”

  “Ordinarily you wouldn’t find any of them,” said Beadlow, “leastwise not around these parts.” He paused and asked, “Any chance of me getting a bed, maybe a room with a barred window in it?”

  The two lawmen stared at him until he gave in and shrugged.

  “All right,” he said. “Rumor has it that Jake, Vincent and Leroy are sticking together real close right now, trying to get this gold situation settled. I wish I could send you straight to them, so’s Quick Draw Vincent could shoot your eyes out. But I don’t know where they are.”

  “Take your best guess,” said Dawson. “You four were headed back across the border. Was that to lead us into a nest of Goshen’s men, get some odds in your favor?”

  “Well, sort of,” said Beadlow. He hesitated.

  “Come on, Kermit. Tell us where you were taking us,” Caldwell persisted.

  “We was headed up into the hill country north of Banton,” Beadlow said. He nodded toward the distant rise of dust. “That’s where Stan Booker is headed. There’s a big camp made up there. It’s been there ever since the robbery in Mexico City.” He gestured down at the fresh blood running down his forearm and dripping steadily into the sand. “I won’t be able to tell you anything more if I stand here and bleed out.”

  “Fix his wound up, Deputy,” Dawson said. “We’ll talk some more on the way to jail.”

  “What jail might that be?” Beadlow asked as Caldwell walked toward his horse to get some bandaging from his saddlebags.

  “Fort Carrick,” Dawson said. He directed the outlaw toward a rock and had him sit down for Caldwell to tend to the wound. When Caldwell came back, he tore Beadlow’s shirtsleeve open and began washing and inspecting the bullet hole.

  Dawson walked away along the empty street, toward the body lying in the dirt. He gazed off across the rolling sand hills, through the endl
ess wavering heat. Somewhere out there he knew he’d find Lawrence Shaw if he searched hard enough, he thought. Fort Carrick might be a good place to start looking.

  By the time the two lawmen and their prisoner rode into Fort Carrick they’d both talked with Kermit Beadlow enough to know that he had nothing else of any importance to tell them. Beadlow was a nobody, a man at the bottom of a long list of outlaws who rode with the Jake Goshen Gang. When they’d hitched their horses at the rail out front of a newly constructed log and stone jailhouse inside the fort, Beadlow stepped down, looked at Dawson and made one last try at staying out of Yuma Prison.

  “Marshal, what if I told you I know where there’s a whole feed sack of those German gold coins buried?” he said to Dawson.

  “I’d say you’re lying, Beadlow,” Dawson replied.

  “But what if I say I can take you right to it and put your hands on it?” Beadlow countered quickly, hesitating as Caldwell took him by his upper arm and guided him toward the door.

  “Save your story,” Dawson said. “Use it to make some friends inside—it might keep somebody from stealing your blanket.” He stepped away as Caldwell gave Beadlow a push toward the jailhouse door.

  At the door a man stood hatless with a wet cloth pressed to a purple knot on the side of his head. He stepped forward when the two lawmen walked closer and eyed Beadlow up and down. “What are you looking at, peckerwood?” Beadlow asked. “Have you never seen a desperate, hardened criminal before?”

  The man turned his reply away from Beadlow and said to Dawson and Caldwell, “Indeed I have. I was waylaid by one today. I had my horse and my water stolen from me. I had to walk fourteen miles in the heat, bone-dry. I thought this might be the scoundrel who did it to me.”